Xbox 360 Fall 2010 Dashboard Update Hits a Console Near You

Description

Yesterday saw the release of the all-new Xbox 360 Console and this year’s fall update sees not just a rejigged design, but comes packed with new features too.

Major Nelson has the full run-down on the new update, but here are a few of my favourite new features:

ESPN on Xbox Live

As a UK sports fan, I’m really jealous we don’t get this one. View more than 3,500 live and on demand sporting events including college basketball, college football and college bowl games, MLB, NBA, international soccer and more. It includes real-time score feeds, a feature to allow Xbox users to vote for the winner of a game in progress, as well as voice chat with up to seen friends on Xbox LIVE.

Zune Music

Streaming video from Zune Marketplace has been pretty cool, but at last Music arrives on Xbox LIVE. For many of us outside the US that means the launch of the new Zune Pass subscription service, which brings millions of tracks straight to the dashboard. Zune Music on Xbox 360 also comes with Smart DJ personalised playlists and the Zune Social for music recommendations.

Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard

Using a controller to type on the Xbox 360 can be a laborious job, so it’s been tweaked to make it easier to use for repeated text entry.

Family Programming

This is a nice feature for parents – when enabled, Family Programming will automatically hide any mature content on the dashboard. Privacy and activity settings are automatically set for each family member based on their age and if there’s a title that you do want to allow access to, you can make that single game an exception.

The new update brings a cleaner design to the Xbox 360 dashboard (including a major revamp of the Sky Player for us UK gamers) which looks great, but perhaps the best feature hasn’t yet been exposed – support for Kinect! In just a few days controlling the Xbox 360 with your body will be a reality. I can’t wait to check it out. In the meantime, switch on your Xbox 360 and go grab that update.